


in my head

by brucewaynery



Series: iron man bingo fills [19]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Tony tells Steve about solipsism, the theory that everything is merely a figment of your own imagination, and Steve lets something slip.for 'college roommates' on iron man bingo





	in my head

Finals were over, and everyone’s burning their textbooks and workbooks on the roof of their apartment building. Everything that was sellable had been sold, portfolios, important coursework and projects had been safely locked away to show future employers, 'Hey look, I _earned_ my degree’. But everything else - worksheets accumulated over the past four years, textbooks that had been useful for one year and one year only, essays scribbled over with red - everything else is in the fire, happily burning away. 

The sun’s starting to set, meaning the fire, bright and orange, and the fairy lights strung between the posts sticking up out of the corners of the roof, as the light. No-one’s in any way sure why the posts are there, but they’re useful. Even if the fairy lights had been a joke at one point.

Steve’s lying on his back on the wall-barrier-thing, one arm behind his head, the other has a half-finished bottle of beer, dangling over the side. He has one leg bent up, foot flat on the wall, the other hanging down the side of the building _the unsafe side_ the part of his brain that sounds suspiciously like his Ma and Bucky, warns, he ignores it for the time being - he’s not a physics major but he’s reasonably certain that he’s balanced, it’s comfortable. He turns his head to face the roof, watching with fascinated disinterest.

It’s quiet, peaceful, there’s not that many of them there, not compared to the whatever’s going on a couple blocks down. He’ll be honest, he wasn’t exactly sure what Sam was on about, but according to everyone who didn’t live in their apartment block (so everyone who isn’t Steve, Tony, Bucky and Clint) there’s a police-level party going on somewhere. 

Steve much prefers this, a couple of friends, on their last night together - not forever, of that he’s sure, but for the foreseeable future - music from the ‘everybody’ playlist (something they made the first time everyone hung out together, about a month into Steve’s first year - Tony’s first year of his PhD, and kept updating) floating out of the old stereo Tony fixed up. Clint had brought up marshmallows and skewers a couple hours ago, when the fire really started burning, but by now, they’d been finished, they still have lots of alcohol, though Steve doubts that everyone’s going to get loud-drunk, they’re tired, happy, because thank _fuck_ it’s over, but tired, because it took a hell of a lot out of them. And they all know that.

He’d thought, for a brief moment that Tony would’ve gone to the bigger, louder party, but he’d caught his eye and smiled, _ don’t worry, I’m staying right here_. Bucky’d told him once, maybe last year, that it was creepy how they could talk without saying a word, but Steve likes it, one look and, nine times out of ten, he knows what Tony’s thinking, and it works the same in his end, there’d been many mornings when Tony knew what he wanted for breakfast before him. 

And many more, their lease is up soon, which means that they’re going apartment hunting next week, someplace in Manhattan, both of them have internships in Manhattan coming up in the fall, so it makes sense for them to live together, or so Steve keeps telling himself. 

Right now, Tony’s laughing about something with Rhodey, a couple feet away from where Steve’s lying, he didn’t catch the joke, but he can see Tony throwing his head back, his curly hair flopping about. His eyes crinkle at the corners, the flickering light from the fire catches in his irises, and Steve feels that familiar pang of love and affection, strong and bittersweet, because, God, Tony’s beautiful, breathtakingly stunning, and bright, in every sense of the word. He lights up any room he’s in, simply by his presence, and Steve feels lucky to even know him, let alone be classed as one of his best friends, but that’s all he’ll ever be to him, nothing more. 

Because guys like Tony, wildly intelligent and drop-dead gorgeous, witty and funny, guys who could have the whole world at their feet, just by asking, simply don’t fall for guys like Steve, sickly, small, laughable ugly next to his friends. To the point that when he wears skinny jeans, that are still a little loose on him, Tony pretty much completely ignores him for the rest of the day. 

The last time he did, Tony kept leaving the room with some half-formed excuse, practically running away.

And Steve’s okay with it, he is, he understands it, he’s perfectly content with being his friend, admiring from afar, and never, ever, letting Tony know what he feels, that he wishes that he could kiss him, just because, because he had pretty-pretty-pretty, incredibly kissable lips, hug him longer, sleep in the same bed, hold hands, cheesy couple-y stuff he knows Tony doesn’t give a shit about. Tony will never get to know any of this because Steve values their friendship over some fleeting crush, he knows, with absolute certainty that Tony won’t ever look at him the same way if he ever so much as uttered a single syllable of his feelings.

So he’s fine with watching the firelight reflect off his hair, watching him laugh, light and free, as a friend. 

His chest feels tight after a couple seconds, not quite asthma-tight, so he tears his gaze away from Tony and shifts his head to stare up at the stars, letting his mind wander from thoughts of beautiful, smart, funny engineers.

He’s always loved the stars, the moon, space in general, everything to do with it, exploration, rovers, planets, galaxies, he’d based his first-year project on space rovers and rockets. He grew up in Brooklyn, which meant that there’d been too much pollution to see all the stars, but he’d stuck up glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling when he was 11, and went to the planetarium every year with his Ma for his birthday, still did. 

He loves all of it, the sheer vastness of it all comforts him, he’s simply a guy on a planet in the universe, does he have a purpose? Maybe. That’s up to him. He loves how little humanity, how much more there is to discover, the leaps and bounds in exploration technology - he’d never been the best at CompSci in high school, he leaves all that to Tony, but _damn_ he can appreciate it.

“Star-gazing again?” 

Tony’s warm voice surprises him so much he almost falls off, startling and tipping towards the street below, he probably would’ve fallen, but Tony catches him with an arm stretched across his chest, with lighting fast reflexes. His arm stays there for a beat before he slides it around his back and guides Steve, so he’s sitting upright.

“Sorry,” Tony says sheepishly, keeping the arm behind Steve’s back, supporting, he tells himself.

“I’m gonna put a cat bell on you,” Steve grumbles, but the effect is completely lost when a grin spreads across his face. Steve leans in to his arm a little, not so much as to arouse suspicion, but Tony’s always been pretty tactile with him, so it’s not too out of the ordinary, he’s close, so close that Steve can smell his spicy cologne, mixed in with engine oil and coffee. Somehow, he almost always smells of coffee. 

“Neither of us want that,” Tony promises, with a tiny, private smile. He jumps up onto the ledge with his other arm, ‘accidentally’ pulling Steve closer. From here, he can see the tiny freckles that are brushed over the bridge of his nose, they only really come out in summer, faint and small, Tony feels a tiny sense of pride that he knows this about Steve. He can also see the hints of green, in the blue of his eyes, another thing he’s positive that most people don’t know. He’s absolutely breathtaking. 

He knows that it ridiculously cheesy to say, but Steve, on multiple occasions, has literally taken his breath away.

Steve in skinny jeans was invented to stop Tony’s heart - he’s positive of it, whenever he wears them, which is tragically rare, Tony just Cannot be around Steve, out of genuine fear of popping a boner, because he’s positive that, whilst their friendship has survived a lot, that’s one thing that’ll have Steve look at him differently. 

So he’ll stick to mild heart attacks whenever Steve wears something tighter than usual, but Steve in too-big hoodies, also gives him a stroke, because, more often than not they’re _his_ hoodies, because they live together, and they’re not the best at laundry, so Steve sometimes ends up with too-big hoodies in his drawers, and Tony sometimes ends up losing his. It’s a win-win situation, really, now that Tony thinks about it, because Steve gets hoodies and Tony gets to see Steve in his hoodies and feel a wholly undeserved and, on every level, wrong, feeling of possessiveness that he has absolutely no right to feel. 

Because he and Steve are just friends, best friends, mind you, but just friends, regardless of the fact that Tony wants to hold him, constantly touch him and kiss his sinfully red lips, and make him laugh, because, _holy shit_ his smile is beautiful, he makes his entire body, and by proxy, Tony, light up like a firework, he’s just, inhumanely gorgeous, all the time. Even in the morning, eyes half-closed, hair tousled, he’s adorable. He even looked good during finals. A godawful mess, no doubt, but a gorgeously beautiful mess. 

He’s well aware just how fucked he is.

“You never know,” Steve says shrugging and taking a pull of his beer and then putting the bottle over to the side, still grinning, looking up at Tony, so, so bright, if he was to ask him to wear a cat bell, he’s not too sure that he’d say no, not with the way that Steve’s looking at him. Tony swears it’s the light and the slight melancholy of the evening, that makes it seem like Steve’s looking at Tony like he hung the moon and stars. He’s not. It’s just the lighting; because Steve doesn’t like him like that.

Instead, Tony laughs, and ducks his head, “I guess not.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence, Tony still with his arm around Steve and Steve leaning in, both simultaneously lost in their own heads and so, so aware of each other. 

Tony’s mind wanders off to a class he was in, maybe a couple weeks ago, entirely by accident, because he’d been in search for his supervisor, and someone’d told him the wrong room, and he’d ended up in some philosophy or epistemology class, about solipsism, according to the powerpoint. No-one had noticed him coming in, so he stayed until his supervisor sent him a strongly worded text to meet him in his office.

Tony overthinks. To the point of panic attacks, he’s gotten better, but still, he knows that he sometimes does, which is why he didn’t really do philosophy, it was fascinating sure, but, it just made him think too much, so he usually avoids it. But solipsism sticks in his mind.

“You ever heard of solipsism?” Tony asks suddenly, quietly, not quite breaking their peaceful bubble.

Steve turns to face him. Tony’s still looking up at the stars, so he probably can’t see the stupidly lovesick expression he knows he has. “Don’t think so, tell me?”

Steve only has one secret he’s kept from him, but times like these he feels it bubbling to the surface - they’re so comfortable and relaxed around each other that it would barely feel like anything would change if were to Steve lean over and kiss him. It’s dangerous, and risky, but Steve can never find a legitimate reason to go, like Tony’s the sun and he’s every damn planet in the solar system.

“A philosopher, Greek, pre-Socratic, Gorgias, found this belief, that, basically, everything around you is made by your own mind,” Tony says, softly, still staring up at the stars.

“Well, if everything around me if my imagination, you’re the best thing I’ve come up with,” Steve says, without thinking. Like he said, risky.

Tony turns to him sharply. “What?” 

“I…” Fuck. Steve’s going to lose one of the most important people in his life, all because he can’t keep his mouth shut. _Fuck_. He can feel his entire face reddening up, he’s thankful for the darkness. Hopefully Tony can’t see it.

Steve looks like he’d rather throw himself off the roof than carry on this conversation, he’s not meeting his eyes. This is the first time in the entire four years that he’s known Steve, that he thinks that he’s going to run from confrontation.

So Tony kisses him. Maybe it’s stupid and impulsive, but perhaps it’s been a long time coming.

And with the way Steve kisses back, full of passion, clutching at Tony’s shirt like he might disappear if he lets go, Tony’s pretty sure that Steve likes him back.

It only took them four years to get here.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! a comment/kudo/ a [reblog of this post](https://ineffablestarkrogers.tumblr.com/post/187049862651/in-my-head) is greatly appreciated <33


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